CONTEST

Hi guys it's your favourite nature lover Marta!(joking maybe)
It is nearly middle of the summer and I got a contest for you. We talked about being eco friendly and stoping animal cruelty and so now I'm going to make sure that me and rach make diffrence. I am giving out little online prizes to people that do one of these things. Just to make shure they are not big but very special .
1. eco badge
to get this you: spend 1 hour less at your computer, don't litter and turn of your tap when washing your teeth.
2. animal cruelty free badge
to get this you: don't go to marine parks, don't go to circuses, make sure that at least one third of your beauty products is not tested on animals.
3. loud helper badge 
to get this you: tell your friends about this blog and ways to help, make an acount on any enviroment or animal helping site like peta.com
4. loving human badge
to get this you: you do all of the things above.

At the start of september just give me your email and what step you did in the comments and I will send you the computer badge.

Bye xoxo


 

DOLPHIN

Hi humans, animals and aliens!!!(anything living)
Dolphins- Yeah
It is summer and i decided to talk more about it but still help the kingdome of nature at the same time. It is hot and sunny in some countries(I wish i was one of the people living there) and some like me live in cold countries :(. But there is one good thing about Ireland dolphins live in it's ocean. Dolphins are not my favourite animals but I love them. We should all respect them too. We  know not to go to marine parks as I said in my other post. We can also donate money for them, don't go to close to them when your on a boat and don't litter at the sea.
Here are facts about a crititally endangered dolphin.My Favourite!
                               Baiji 白鱀豚

Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Subclass:	Eutheria
Order:	Cetacea
Suborder:	Odontoceti
Superfamily:	Platanistoidea
Family:	Lipotidae Zhou, Qian & Li, 1978
Genus:	Lipotes Miller, 1918
Species:	L. vexillifer
Binomial name
Lipotes vexillifer Miller, 1918

 
The Baiji (Chinese: 白鱀豚; pinyin:  báijìtún (help·info)) (Lipotes vexillifer, Lipotes meaning "left behind", vexillifer "flag bearer") was a freshwater dolphin found only in the Yangtze River in China. Nicknamed "Goddess of the Yangtze" (simplified Chinese: 长江女神; traditional Chinese: 長江女神; pinyin: Cháng Jiāng nǚshén) in China, the dolphin was also called Chinese River Dolphin, Yangtze River Dolphin, Whitefin Dolphin and Yangtze Dolphin. It is not to be confused with the Chinese White Dolphin.
The Baiji population declined drastically in recent decades as China industrialized and made heavy use of the river for fishing, transportation, and hydroelectricity. Efforts were made to conserve the species, but a late 2006 expedition failed to find any Baiji in the river. Organizers declared the Baiji "functionally extinct",which would make it the first aquatic mammal species to become extinct since the demise of the Japanese Sea Lion and the Caribbean Monk Seal in the 1950s. It would also be the first recorded extinction of a well-studied cetacean species (it is unclear if some previously extinct varieties were species or subspecies) to be directly attributable to human influence.
In August 2007, Zeng Yujiang reportedly videotaped a large white animal swimming in the Yangtze.Although Wang Kexiong of the Institute of Hydrobiology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has tentatively confirmed that the animal on the video is probably a baiji, the presence of only one or a few animals, particularly of advanced age, is not enough to save a functionally extinct species from true extinction. The last known living baiji was Qi Qi (淇淇), which died in 2002.

list of conversation actions :1 Land/water protection                                      1.1 Site/area protection                                       1.2 Resource & habitat protection                                          2 Land/water management                                        2.1 Site/area management                                           3 Species management                                         3.2 Species recovery                                        3.4 Ex-situ conservation                                      3.4.1 Captive breeding/artificial propagation                                          4 Education & awareness                                         4.2 Training                                         4.3 Awareness & communications                                             5 Law & policy                                          5.4 Compliance and enforcement                                       5.4.2 National level                                       5.4.3 Sub-national level threats                                            6 Livelihood, economic & other incentives                                           6.1 Linked enterprises & livelihood alternatives

1 Residential & commercial development 1.1 Housing & urban areas 1.2 Commercial & industrial areas 2 Agriculture & aquaculture 2.1 Annual & perennial non-timber crops 2.1.3 Agro-industry farming 4 Transportation & service corridors 4.3 Shipping lanes 5 Biological resource use 5.4 Fishing & harvesting aquatic resources 5.4.1 Intentional use: (subsistence/small scale) 5.4.4 Unintentional effects: (large scale) 7 Natural system modifications 7.2 Dams & water management/use 7.2.11 Dams (size unknown) 8 Invasive & other problematic species & genes 8.2 Problematic native species 9 Pollution 9.1 Domestic & urban waste water 9.1.3 Type Unknown/Unrecorded 9.2 Industrial & military effluents 9.2.3 Type Unknown/Unrecorded 9.3 Agricultural & forestry effluents 9.3.2 Soil erosion, sedimentation 9.3.4 Type Unknown/Unrecorded 9.6 Excess energy 9.6.3 Noise pollution

Changes

Hi guys it's Marta and it is summer!!!!
I know I did not post for very long but my laptop broke down( i'm doing this on my sister's laptop). 


I am making a big change on this blog and i don't know will you guys like it. I'm making it into a blog about animals.( animal cruelty, endargered species, polution, etc. Just no people help ) We will still do arts and crafts , songs and ways to help the world but in a diffrent way (no humans).
The world should not only concentrate on humans but on animals and the invoriment too. I want to be a vet when i grow up to help understand animals better and help them. Without some of the animals that live now our ecosystem will go down and we will all slowly die.

                                             tell me what you think in comments and bye  

Marine Parks

Hi guys!!
It's nearly summer holidays at my school.
I hope you all heve fun on your holidays but plz don't make them cruel. There are manny bad things happening to animals but let's talk about marine parks.

Imagine being stuck in your bathtub for your whole life that is exactly how orcas and dolphins feel in marine parks. Wild water mammals should swim in the sea not dance and jump for audince  or swim with tourists. I know there is something like dolphin therapy but you could use dolphins instead. The animals are forced to do the things in fear here are some facts:    
  

1. Killer whales, or orcas, are members of the dolphin family. In the ocean, orcas and dolphins stay with their families, or “pods,” for their entire lives and communicate with each other in a “dialect” specific to their family pod. Imagine, then, the trauma inflicted on these highly social animals when they are ripped from their families and put in the strange artificial world of a marine park.                                                  
2.   In nature, orcas and dolphins enjoy the ability to move freely. Their streamlined bodies and smooth skin enable them to gain fast speed, and they are always on the move, swimming up to 100 miles a day. They spend only 10-20 percent of their time on the water’s surface and can hold their breath for as long as 30 minutes, diving to depths of more than 1,640 feet.
   In captivity, orcas and dolphins are restricted by their tank or enclosure, which can measure a mere 24 feet by 24 feet wide and six feet deep. They can only swim a few feet before a wall or a fence stops them. Captive orcas and dolphins spend more than half of their time swimming in small circles or simply lying motionless on the surface of the water. Experts believe that this may account for the collapsed dorsal fins seen on the majority of captive orcas.
   Captivity’s Tragic Consequences
   
   Captivity is a death sentence for orcas and dolphins and more than 3,850 marine mammals have died in captivity in the last 30 years. In the wild, dolphins can live to be 25 to 50 years old. Male orcas live between 50 and 60 years, females between 80 and 90 years. Orcas rarely survive more than 10 years in captivity. Common causes of death include, capture shock, pneumonia, chlorine poisoning, starvation, stress, drowning, and heat. To the marine park industry, these facts are accepted as routine operating expenses. 

There was once a story of an orca killing a man
   Tilikum was just 2 years old when he was taken from the ocean in 1983. Ever since then, he's been kept in cramped tanks, where he gets very little exercise and is forced to learn circus-style tricks for human entertainment. Former trainers say that withholding food and isolating animals who refuse to perform are two common training methods.

We think that Tilikum's aggressive behavior toward his trainers is proof of his unhappiness. Captive animals such as Tilikum not only take out their frustration on humans but also on themselves. A marine mammal behavioral biologist in Seattle says that "dolphins in captivity can exhibit self-inflicted trauma" and that some drift at the surface of the water and chew on concrete until they've destroyed their teeth. Others have reportedly taken their own lives by hitting their heads against the sides of pools or by not coming up for air.


Plz don't go!!!
thanks 

Longest Day of the Year 2011!

Hey Guys!

Today we just wanting to talk to you guys about the Longest Day of the year 2011!

The shortest day is today and we comence at 17:16 or 5:16pm. 

On or around June 21 each year, the rays of the sun will be perpendicular to the Tropic of Cancer at 23°30' North latitude. This day is the summer solstice in the Northern Hemisphere.

On this day, the earth's "circle of illumination" will be from the Arctic Circle on the far side of the earth (in relation to the sun) to the Antarctic Circle on the near side of the earth. The equator receives twelve hours of daylight, there's 24 hours of daylight at the North Pole and areas north of 66°30' N, and there's 24 hours of darkness at the South Pole and areas south of 66°30' S.

June 20-21 is start of summer in the Northern Hemisphere but simultaneously the start of winter in the Southern Hemisphere. It's also the longest day of sunlight for places in the Northern Hemisphere and the shortest day for cities south of the equator.

However, June 20-21 is not the day when the sun rises earliest in the morning nor when it sets latest at night. As we'll see - the date of earliest sunrise or sunset varies from location to location.

We'll start our tour of the solstice in the north, with Anchorage, Alaska and head south in the U.S. and then move on to international cities. It's interesting to compare the difference in sunrise and sunset in various locales around the globe.

 This is a little bit of information about the countries of our main viewers.

Canada.

In Quebec, Canada, the celebration of June 24 was brought to New France by the first French colonists. Great fires were lit at night. According to the Jesuit Relations, the first celebrations of St John's day in New France took place around 1638. In 1834, Ludger Duvernay, printer and editor of La Minerve took the leadership of an effort to make June 24 the national holiday of the Canadiens (French Canadians). In 1908, Pope Pius X designated John the Baptist as the patron saint of the French-Canadians. In 1925, June 24 became a legal holiday in Quebec and in 1977, it became the secular National Holiday of Quebec. It still is the tradition to light great fires on the night of the 24th of June.

In Quebec's Laurentian Mountains, half way between Montreal and Ottawa, "Līgo Svētki" is celebrated at a youth camp named "Tērvete"; this is the name of a village in Latvia.^[4]

Germany
The day of sun solstice is called Sommer-Sonnenwende in German. On June 20, 1653 the Nuremberg town council issued the following order: "Where experience herefore have shown, that after the old heathen use, on John's day in every year, in the country, as well in towns as villages, money and wood have been gathered by young folk, and there upon the so-called sonnenwendt or zimmet fire kindled, and thereat winebibbing, dancing about the said fire, leaping over the same, with burning of sundry herbs and flowers, and setting of brands from the said fire in the fields, and in many other ways all manner of superstitious work carried on---Therefore the Hon. Council of Nürnberg town neither can nor ought to forbear to do away with all such unbecoming superstition, paganism, and peril of fire on this coming day of St. John."^{[citation needed]} Bonfires are still a custom in many areas of Germany. People gather to watch the bonfire and celebrate solstice.

 Ireland
Many towns and cities have 'Midsummer Carnivals' with fairs, concerts and fireworks either on or on the weekend nearest to Midsummer. In some rural spots, bonfires are occasionally lit on hilltops. This tradition harks back to pagan times. Irish deities connected with Midsummer include Áine, to whom Midsummer offerings were traditionally made in County Limerick.


 Poland 
Especially in northern Poland – the Eastern Pomeranian and Kashubian regions – midsummer is celebrated on June 23. People dress in traditional Polka dress, and girls throw wreaths made of flowers into the Baltic Sea, and into lakes or rivers. The midsummer day celebration starts at about 8:00 p.m. and lasts all night until sunrise. People celebrate this special day every year and call it Noc Świętojańska which means St. John's Night. On that day in big Polish cities (like Warsaw and Kraków) there are many organized events, the most popular event being the Wianki in Kraków, which means wreaths.

United Kingdom 
In Great Britain from the 13th century, Midsummer was celebrated on Midsummer Eve (St. John's Eve, June 23) and St. Peter's Eve (June 28) with the lighting of bonfires, feasting and merrymaking.
In late fifteenth-century England, John Mirk of Lilleshall Abbey, Shropshire, gives the following description: "At first, men and women came to church with candles and other lights and prayed all night long. In the process of time, however, men left such devotion and used songs and dances and fell into lechery and gluttony turning the good, holy devotion into sin." The church fathers decided to put a stop to these practices and ordained that people should fast on the evening before, and thus turned waking into fasting (Festial 182).

 United States of Amercia
Midsummer celebrations held throughout the United States are largely derived from the cultures of immigrants who arrived from various European nations since the 19th century.
The NYC Swedish Midsummer celebrations in Battery Park, New York City, attracts some 3,000-5,000 people annually, which makes it one of the largest celebrations after the ones held in Leksand and at the Skansen Park in Stockholm. Sweden Day, a Midsummer celebration which also honors Swedish heritage and history which has been held annually on the sound in Throgs Neck, in New York City since 1941. Swedish Midsummer is also celebrated in other places with large Swedish and Scandinavian populations, such as Chicago, Illinois, Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Lindsborg, Kansas. The Swedish "language village" (summer camp) Sjölunden, run by Concordia College in Minnesota, also celebrates Midsummer.

If we missed you , be sure to let us know in a comment below!

  Till next time guys!

Rachel && Marta ♥